Daniel Tepfer

Updated 10:37 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- A Florida man, connected to a two-year-old rape case here through DNA testing, was sentenced Friday to 14 years and 11 months behind bars.

"I would like to apologize to the victim," Juan Belardo told state Superior Court Judge George Thim before the judge sentenced him to 25 years, suspended after he serves 14 years and 11 months and followed by 20 years of probation.

The judge also ordered the 46-year-old Belardo, who had pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault, to register as a sex offender.

Belardo is accused of raping the 22-year-old woman outside th Lakeview Cemetery on Dec. 11, 2010. The case remained unsolved until last April when police said the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory was able to match DNA taken from the victim with Belardo's DNA, which is on file as a result of a prior unrelated conviction.

The victim had been walking along Boston Avenue listening to music on her iPhone when a man grabbed her. Police said the assailant dragged the woman to an area by the cemetery, where he ripped off her clothes and raped her.

Following the assault, police said the man took the woman's cellphone and ordered her to run off and not look back at him.